I read ‘the tyranny of recipes’, an article in Prospect magazine the other day that really resonated with me. In the article, the author explains how our increased reliance on recipes has impaired the intrinsic development of judgment – he argues, that we’ve lost trust in our own ability to understand and know what is working in the kitchen – and I think this analogy transcends this particular context.
The author writes … “Our tendency to describe courses of action as “recipes” or “formulas” suggests we believe problems are best solved by following step-by-step procedures that lead to guaranteed results. I think there is something deeply problematic in this ….”
I tend to agree with him – and it got me thinking about my own work in social services. We see ourselves [at IRISS] as facilitators of others’ creativity; we try to create safe and reflective spaces to encourage people to try things out, to have a go, and to see what happens. Time and time again we come up across the same old barriers in that people want to know what the outcome will be, by when and for whom. When we work together to co-design or co-produce the outcomes much of this cannot be known at the outset – because we are not following a prescriptive path. We do use a variety of processes (of course!) but these tend to be very flexible to allow for what might emerge in conversation and practice.
So, how can we revive the art of practical wisdom? It will likely demand that people who are supported by services, practitioners and those in senior management have a certain type of mindset which is comfortable with ambiguity (i.e. there is not a set ‘way’ to do things) and that is not afraid of failure (i.e. we will get things wrong, but in the process of figuring things out, we’ll try to minimize this risk by working alongside you).
This speaks nicely to another article I read recently about ‘Generation Flux’ – the new generation of workers whose underpinning values are creativity, impulsiveness and willingness to experiment. This is a generation of people who are learning to occupy unknown space and navigate through (negative capability) – and it’s the idea that any body of any age can operate in this way (i.e. it is not a demographic).
I’ve heard it said that innovation is based on wisdom – and wisdom comes from information synthesis (from your practical experience as well as things you’ve read and written etc). So we shouldn’t blindly follow process, we should embrace our hunches and the practical wisdom that we accumulate!
Do you follow your hunches? Are you comfortable in a generation of flux?
Great post Lisa. There’s a balance to be struck. Learning the basics gives you the confidence to innovate. Picasso was a draftsman and all that.